we are our imagination

stepping out of the moment

we can imagine,

and thus we can step out of the moment,

that world anchored in our senses,

and into realities that might be,

from the fantastic to the probable,

inside we can travel in time,

whether to remember paths that lead to now

or to see what might be along this or that potential path,

as near as I can tell,

most other animals don’t remember ones lost to us:

after a lion makes a kill

the herd seems to forget 

and moves on with grazing,

and we humans can do that, too,

but we also can remember too well

and a past loss can haunt us,

that which gives up the ghost

still exists for us as we imagine,

we can foresee our own passing

and, through understanding a limit to the future,

present moments can be even sweeter.

by Henry H. Walker

April 4, ’14

a thought terrain

history writes with water

I hike along the creek,

and I change where I’m going

according to how I can answer the issue

of how to cross the water,

a bridge is not what nature gives us,

and a ford works in lower water if it’s okay if you get wet,

I look up the hill and see a path

carved above the cliffs so that, even in flood, travel can work,

trails and roads snake through mountains

the ways water shows us how,

I am fascinated by how much of history

has been written by water.

by Henry H. Walker

April 2, ’14

April wildflowers call us to the mountains

special gardens

wildflowers pull us up to the mountains in April,

violets 




and windflower and yellow trillium


whisper a welcome

as we move through them in search of the special gardens

with just the right mix of soil and moisture, of sun and circumstance,

so that blood root can bloom for its brief flowering

and we want to be in the audience for its presentation,

winter has withdrawn much of summer’s obscuring foliage,

though it's also littered the forest with dead branches,

almost in parody of branches cut and spread to honor and celebrate,

today we move with wonder through two of our favorite wild gardens,

one far enough up a valley that the land was never domesticated,

and, underneath great buckeye trees,


 are draped fields of

white-fringed phacelia, spring beauties, hepatica, windflower, 
white trillium,

Dutchman’s breeches, 



and trout lily,

and on a limestone slope just above where Little River leaves the park,

where a hundred years ago all the great trees 

were transformed into lumber and slash piles,

spring ephemerals still find a space to be,

as blood-root blooms in profusion,

accompanied by hepatica, toothwort, 



violets, spring beauties, 

rue anemone, chickweed,and yellow trillium,

every spring nature throws a party with the flowers,

and, like the honeybees in the phacelia I saw today,

I am drawn to the sweetness of what’s there,

there’s a feast planned for summer,

for now I love the appetizer of small special gardens

which whet my appetite for what is still to come.

by Henry H. Walker

April 2, ’14

stasis and life take turns

maple sugaring time

here in late March in Massachusetts



snow and ice still linger

where plows have moved it all out of the way

and where sun hasn’t yet phase-changed it back to liquid,

all this world seems water-logged,

here where winter can rule with a frigid hand, 

it’s as if stasis and life take turns at the game:

like Persephone half the year here, 

half the year not,

like in Narnia with the White Queen 

denying spring as long as she can,

like with the Vernal Equinox 

as the day is torn in half between light and dark,

I am intrigued by what I learn of maple sugaring:

that for the sap to flow well

nights should be in the 20’s and days in the 40’s,

each productive day a new reawakening from winter to spring,

and then the sap boils down from 30 gallons to 1 gallon of maple syrup,

it takes winter and spring together to remember the sweetness of summer.

by Henry H. Walker

March 29, ’14

a 5 year-old's imagination

the power of play

there’s power in a 5 year-old’s imagination

as she creates whole worlds

within which she acts

and within which character after character also act,

all within her power as that of the creator,

she can lose herself in play for long periods

where her will is dominant,

such control can contrast sharply with the regular world

that can mightily frustrate a young one:

all the restrictions on her impulses

as others need their turn

and many desires need tempering,

play is a respite, an escape,

from the hard work of growing-up,

and also a place to work out the plaguing kinks from her stumbles,

it’s calisthenics for the imagination

and a retreat before the next advance:

then she’s back in the give-and-take differentiation of self and other

that tempers and shapes the steel of her will.

by Henry H. Walker

March 30, ’14

the quilt, or the winds

Rachel on a Cusp

life is change

as “what isn’t” becomes “what is,

genesis miracles around us all the time,

I can love what was and hope to love what will be,

all the while hoping to hold the sand of now

as it slips through my fingers,

our oldest grandchild is 9 

and on a cusp that is stark in contrast:

drawn to both the embracing warmth of the quilt of childhood

and the bracing heady vigor of the winds of knowing,

she loves the uncomplicated pleasures of play, of laughing,

of figuring out simple puzzles,

of enjoying the uncomplicated pleasures of her life,

while, at the same time, she hungers to learn,

to know what adults are talking about,

to read voraciously, even if the topics in the books

are not yet appropriate for her,

I tease her as she watches tv that the woman on screen

doesn’t look much like Dora the Explorer,

then I add, “Oh, you’re not 3 any more, are you?”

to which she replies, “Unfortunately, no. . .”

by Henry H. Walker

March 29, ’14

sharply succulent

tomato dreams

the tomato seed germinates,

prods itself out of the ground

in hopes the sun will be there for it,

it reaches as high as it can go

while inside for a month

as killing cold holds sway over the garden,

it falls over and finds a way to reach high again anew,

it knows hope,

and it embodies will,

I can feel within the stalky green

the potential of tomato upon tomato coming to be,

and I long to pluck each sharply succulent globe

and bite into what was but a dream

back in the dead of winter,

humans are such stuff as can envision and make real such dreams,

I imagine the tomato,

and I work to find the path from my imagining

to plucking that first fresh tomato

as soon after the Summer Solstice as possible.

by Henry H. Walker

March 19, ’14